Registered Report
Definition
A scientific publishing format that includes an initial round of peer review of the background and methods (study design, measurement, and analysis plan); sufficiently high quality manuscripts are accepted for in-principle acceptance (IPA) at this stage. Typically, this stage 1 review occurs before data collection, however secondary data analyses are possible in this publishing format. Following data analyses and write up of results and discussion sections, the stage 2 review assesses whether authors sufficiently followed their study plan and reported deviations from it (and remains indifferent to the results). This shifts the focus of the review to the study’s proposed research question and methodology and away from the perceived interest in the study’s results.
References:
- Chambers, C. D. (2013). Registered reports: a new publishing initiative at Cortex. Cortex, 49(3), 609–610. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cortex.2012.12.016
- Chambers, C. D., Dienes, Z., McIntosh, R. D., Rotshtein, P., & Willmes, K. (2015). Registered reports: realigning incentives in scientific publishing. Cortex, 66, A1–A2. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cortex.2015.03.022
- Chambers, C. D., & Tzavella, L. (2020). Registered Reports: Past, Present and Future. https://doi.org/10.31222/osf.io/43298
- Findley, M. G., Jensen, N. M., Malesky, E. J., & Pepinsky, T. B. (2016). Can results-free review reduce publication bias? The results and implications of a pilot study. Comparative Political Studies, 49(13), 1667–1703. https://doi.org/10.1177/0010414016655539
- Center for Open Science. (2025). Registered Reports Initiative. https://www.cos.io/initiatives/registered-reports
Originally drafted by: Madeleine Pownall
Reviewed by: Gilad Feldman, Emma Henderson, Aoife O’Mahony, Sam Parsons, Mariella Paul, Charlotte R. Pennington, Eike Mark Rinke, Timo Roettger, Olmo van den Akker, Yuki Yamada, Flávio Azevedo
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